


A Rogue, an Artificer and a Curse

by spicymouthwash



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adora's in a flashback, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, More tags to be added, Slow Burn, ambiguously romantic, blame shadow weaver, body image issues, past catradora, slightly more angst than intended oops, technically, vaguely d&d inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29593161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicymouthwash/pseuds/spicymouthwash
Summary: Catra has a problem and she needs Entrapta's help to solve it. They also need to travel across an entire continent together to do that. Things happen.Basically an excuse to write RoboCat interactions because that dynamic needs more attention. And it's also about Catra finding an identity for herself, working through some shit, et cetera specifically in the context of a (more or less) non-romantic relationship because that too is underexplored, in my opinion.Shouldn't get too heavy though.
Relationships: Catra/Entrapta (She-Ra)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited, so don't be shy to point out mistakes and stuff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catra wore a mask before it was cool.

It was market day in the proud city of Dryl and all manner of artisans, craftsmen, merchants and showmen were touting their goods, haggling and bartering away. Beggars and bums shuffled away into in the seedier corners and darker alleys, where business of the less savory variety was conducted. In short, anything could be sold and bought here, from war maces to perfume, from children's toys to slaves.

Carried by the dense crowd, a dark clad figure floated from stall to stall unremarked upon in the general chaos but observed in isolation quite strange: Not a patch of skin showing, head masked and wrapped in black cloth, not dissimilar to the masked turbans the desert nomads in the Crimson Wastes wore, underneath a dark red hood to hide even the eyes. At every vendor's display one gloved hand rose, holding a pendulum and the figure waited with bated breath for a few seconds before lowering the hand and moving on to the next stall. The stranger's ominous presence was enough to deter questions or interruptions as they continued their hunt for whatever mysterious item they were after.

Eventually, the stranger made their way to a display that could only be described as lavish to the point of excess. It was a blacksmith's, the town's premier one in fact and that meant something in a town renowned for its ore and the products forged thereof. Yet the vendor manning the stall didn't seem like he had ever so much as touched a hammer, judging by the many rings adorning his dainty hands as he smugly sat against the wall of the shop in his fur lined collar, not even bothering to shout out his wares like all his competitors did.

The stranger's eyes narrowed underneath the hood. A middle-class middle-man probably peddling middling wares. They raised their pendulum for the usual routine.

„Please don't touch the wares... sir?“ the man spoke up with a sickly sweet smile.

„Shut it,“ a gruff but undeniably feminine voice replied.

The vendor was about to retort when the pendulum began to circle, apparently of its own volition. A A whisper escaped his shocked face:

„Witchcraft.“

The stranger ignored him as the pendulum swung wider and wider circles and slowly drew her to a short double-bladed battle axe, while the vendor frantically looked around to ensure nobody was paying attention to this unnatural display.

Her search at last concluded, the stranger caught the pendulum in her hand to safely stow away in her pocket now that its task was done; it had been a pretty pricey purchase after all. She picked up the axe to examine it and shut up the slimeball with a mere glance from underneath her hood. He went pale as a sheet and begrudgingly let her twirl and swing the axe around, test the balance and so on.

Satisfied, she slammed it onto the table, startling the vendor to attention and leaned her chin on the handle.

„You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?“

„Wh-what?“

The stranger leaned forward conspiratorially, which for the first time awarded the man a proper look at her eyes glowing under the shaded hood: Mismatched and with irises indistinct from the sclera; one of aquatic blue and one of toxic yellow.

„Witchcraft.”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,”he tried, not so subtly wringing his hands.

“Uh-huh,” the stranger got out of his face and picked up the axe again, “that's fine,” she shrugged, “just tell me who made this.”

“A-are you with the inquisition?” he asked quietly, as if saying the name alone would summon that band of fanatics and their brutal methods.

“Lucky for you, no.”

After a moment's hesitation, the vendor relented and put his gross smile back on.

“Of course, madam, I'll go fetch her right away.”

He turned to leave but the stranger's hand was faster. She pulled his arm down onto the table, while her other rested the blade against his wrist.

A cruel grin spread underneath her mask as she parodied his saccharine tone.

“I hope you weren't about bring me any one of the random smiths who make the rest of the scrap here, right? Because you really don't want to have to sell a beauty like this second hand.”

The man strained against her iron grip but crumpled quickly.

“Alright, fine. Come back here after sundown and I'll take you to her.”

“Sure, I'll just be taking your thumb with me then. For security. Can't trust anyone these days, you know how it is,” she replied cheerily and aimed the blade.

“Stop! For the love of... stop.”

She let go of him and dropped the axe in the same breath.

He quickly ordered one of his subordinates to man the stand while he took a “piss break” and started leading the dark stranger out of the hustle and bustle towards the city walls. They weren't leaving Dryl however, as he eventually turned away from the main road and into the jumble of winding side streets until they reached a public lavatory.

“You aren't actually about to go have a piss, are you?” The stranger challenged.

The man didn't answer and instead circumvented the building. Here a second, obviously much more rarely used door opened to a narrow staircase that went underground. This he unlocked with a key from somewhere inside his fuzzy coat.

“In there,” he announced.

The stranger looked down the tunnel and then back at the man.

“Your best blacksmith, whose work you rely on to maintain your grubby little business, lives in the sewers?” she deadpanned.

“She's eccentric?” he offered lamely.

The stranger approached him and even though she was considerably shorter than him, he shriveled under her glare.

“If you think I won't break your neck and and stuff your corpse into the literal shithole we're standing next to...”

“I wouldn't doubt you for a second,” he sniveled, “She prefers to be left alone. I've only seen her a handful of times myself,” he pulled a map out of his robes, “here, I just go to this place,” he pointed at a marked spot, “with whatever supplies she asks for and pick up her wares for the week.”

She snatched the paper out of his hands and studied it.

“How did you find her in the first place?”

“I didn't. She came to me and offered to sell me her work.”

“Not a great judge of character, is she?”

“That'll be in your favor at least,” he mumbled in what he thought was under his breath.

The stranger unexpectedly guffawed.

“Touché. Now run along, you slimy little weasel. And gods help you if you're wasting my time.”

“I wouldn't dare,” he bowed disingenuously low and shuffled away backwards.

“Wait!”

He froze.

“Your purse,” she made a come hither motion. “I assume you still owe the weirdo in there a lil somethin' anyway.”

Begrudgingly, he dropped his rather weighty purse into her hands and slunk away.

With the help of the map, the stranger made her way through the sewers quickly. Admittedly she would have been in trouble without it and the overwhelming stench wasn't helping, despite her mask offering a little protection. Her journey took her deeper into the rocky mountainside Dryl was built upon and gradually the tangle of channels and shafts began to thin until she found herself in an entirely dry tunnel that wasn't as neatly carved as the rest. The sewers must have been built along a naturally occurring cave system in the mountain but she was reaching depths that made it useless for such purposes.

The end of the marked out route was at a fork in the road. At first glance the two tunnels looked identical but the ground on the left appeared to be very slightly more scuffed than the right. Possibly. It was frankly more intuition than deduction.

Nevertheless, she followed the winding corridors deeper and deeper into the mountain. She knew she was on the right track when she narrowly avoided blundering into a trip wire. It wasn't the only one of its kind either, wires, pressure tiles and secret switches and even more forks in the road formed a lethal labyrinth to anyone lacking her tracking skills and sharpened senses. But even so, after more close calls than she cared to admit, she still eventually found herself at a dead end.

She groaned her exasperation into the darkness, took a few deep breaths of the musty air and gathered herself. Refusing to believe that she had taken a wrong turn, she started examining the wall blocking her progress. The rock was natural enough but where it met the ground a crack ran all the way across, thin enough to be easily missed in the watery lantern light and soon she found something similar around one of the stalagmites that dotted the caverns here and there.

Confident that she had found the door mechanism, she twisted the stalagmite around. It moved without friction, but nothing followed for a moment until...

_Click._

“Click?”

Before she could react, the ground gave way under her feet and she fell. Instinctively, black claws pierced their way through boots and gloves as she tried to slow her descent against the wall of the pit. It was painful against the unyielding stone but she managed to slow herself down and land more or less gracefully on the floor, thankfully unadorned with any stakes or other nasty surprises. She was about six strides deep; a challenge but not an insurmountable one.

Just as she had clawed her way back up to the tunnel, a series of mechanical noises emanated from beyond the wall and the whole thing was pulled up by hidden chains like a portcullis. A knight in full armor emerged out of a lit and obviously inhabited room, tall and proud in their gleaming armor. An ominous light shone through their helmet's eye slit. They gazed down the empty tunnel, then leaned forward to look what had gotten caught in the trap.

This was the moment their uninvited guest decided to strike. She dropped from the ceiling she had been clinging to and onto the knight's back. In a flash, a dagger was drawn and thrust into the gap between helmet and neck guard. But she must have missed somehow, as the knight didn't react by screaming or wildly flailing in panic like she would have expected and instead took two controlled steps back to slam the stranger into the wall behind. With her momentarily staggered the knight used the opportunity to free themself of her and drew the their sword.

The intruder recovered quickly and drew her own weapons from inside her cloak: A pair of short but devastatingly quick falchions.

They circled each other, each looking for an opening. The knight had a longer range, which forced the stranger into defense or so it should have, had she not been used to this disadvantage. She dashed forward, slipped under the knight's whistling counter blow and managed to get a slice into the back of the knee, but again no reaction or blood followed. Still, she was behind her opponent now and immediately struck again but this time they managed to parry by hauling the sword behind their back in an impressive display of flexibility for someone in full plate armor. She jumped back to regroup but this time the enemy took the initiative and swung wide in a blow mighty enough to fell a tree. The stranger parried with both her blades and felt the reverberations of the impact vibrate down her arms as the sword wedged itself into hers. Then a shriek and a crack as her blades shattered, leaving her with little more than two handles and a second or two to get out of range before the knight struck again. She put a good deal of space between them and dropped her cloak. All she had now was her speed and agility.

The knight approached once again, swung and missed but quickly redirected that energy into a low thrust. The stranger leapt up, used the blade as a springboard and vaulted over the knight's head. As she went, her claws managed to find purchase under their chin and yanked away the helmet. It flew off in a wide arc and skid across the floor somewhere behind her as she landed on all fours. She intended to make quick work of of the knight's now vulnerable head but found this plan foiled by the fact that they did not in fact have a head to be vulnerable. It was merely an enchanted armor, hence why it couldn't bleed or make noise and nor could it see without its helmet, judging by how it staggered around in complete disorientation.

“Well that seems like a critical design flaw,” a voice commented from behind. The stranger whipped around and, with the danger subdued, for the first time got a proper look at the cave she was standing in. It was at least ten strides tall, with mighty pillars of stone holding up the ceiling, from which hung a cast iron chandelier that illuminated what was clearly a workshop, complete with a furnace, workbenches, grinding wheels, endless shelves of tools and crates of raw material. From the main cavern, smaller caves branched off at various elevations. The voice had come from the entrance of one quite high up and belonged to a woman who had been sitting there with her legs folded the entire time, observing silently. She was in a blacksmith's garb, heavy reinforced trousers, padded arm guards and gloves covering what her jerkin couldn't and a tool-belt around her hips. The only thing missing was her apron, which was slung over an anvil down below.

“Are you the artificer known as the Molten Fist?” The intruder demanded firmly.

“Hmm,” the blacksmith scratched her chin, inadvertently smearing soot all over it, then smiled, “I am _an_ artificer, but I don't really keep up with the names you people call me, so I don't know.”

“I think it's supposed to be a compliment. At any rate, I have traveled far and wide to-”

Behind her the armor stumbled over a stray bar of iron and it clattered to the floor. The noise took a moment to subside.

“As I was saying, I've come here fro-”

The armor tried to get back on its feet, only to knock over more of the iron bars leaning against the wall. This time it was deafening and the stranger could only stand there and glower.

“I've been looking for you for-”

The armor, finally upright, promptly walked into a pillar and fell over again.

Feeling an eye twitch coming on the stranger picked up the helmet from the other side of the room, stomped back to the armor and plonked it back on its nonexistent neck, before returning to her previous position.

“I need your help, ok?”

“You know you didn't have to come all the way down here to place an order, that's what Verren is for.”

“Who?”

“The man who told you where to look for me. Tall, wears very impractical clothes, smiles a lot.”

The vendor. She had never even bothered to ask his name.

“It's not that kind of help. And he's skimming your share by the way.”

At this she pulled the purse off her belt and tossed it to the artificer. To her surprise, her hands didn't move and instead a thick strand of her long unnaturally purple hair intercepted the object. The purse was carelessly thrown backwards into the shadows and the blacksmith waited for her to carry on.

Slowly, the stranger pulled down her mask and unwrapped the rest of her head until a unkempt mop of dark hair appeared, followed by just the hint of dense fuzz that covered her up to her chin and most strikingly a pair of feline ears that had been flattened against the sides of her head in a frankly painful way underneath the turban. The artificer's interest was piqued enough by this that her twin tails of hair lifted her from her perch and, using the various stalactites as holds, carried her close enough to get a good look but remain just out of arm's reach.

“Fascinating.”

Uncovered like this, the stranger's gaze automatically shifted downward in discomfort. She had to drag them back up to meet the artificer's scrutiny and project any kind of defiance against unblinking irises, a magenta almost too luminous to look at.

The silence didn't have time to settle before the artificer pulled back a little, hands comfortably resting on her still folded legs.

“Sorry, I'm afraid you've got the wrong cave. Bye!” Her hair moved to carry her back to her perch.

The cat blinked a couple of times at the sudden turn.

“Wait, what?”

The artificer turned half around.

“Curses aren't really my... area. What you want is a witch or a druid maybe.”

That unintentionally hit a nerve.

“The water witch of Salineas is who told me to come here in the first place! She wants me to tell you to 'stay the fuck away from her sea gate' by the way, which I'm not sure if it's a euphemism for something and really, I don't wanna know. Anyway, I went to her because the head mage of Mystacor told me to and I found out about them from a drunk necromancer in the Crimson Wastes! I've been bounced back and forth across the continent by you magic freaks for years now! I mean, what is it with you people?!”

She stopped her rant to catch her breath, not because she was worried she might upset the artificer, who was obviously just another dud in her doomed quest.

“I can fix these for you,” the blacksmith offered, having calmly picked up the pieces of her falchions while her visitor vented years of pent up frustration at her.

The stranger gathered her nerves and re-bottled her anger to be let out later at an unfortunate bag of straw or, if fortune was on her side, a very foolish mugger.

“I need to get going. They say there's an ice witch _somewhere_ in the Blue Mountains. Maybe I'll get lucky and die in an avalanche on the way.” She threw up her arms in frustration and went to pick up her cloak.

“The Blue Mountains? That's beyond the Whispering Woods.”

“So?”

“So you can find your way through them?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Very few humans can.”

“I'm special,” she replied sarcastically.

“Hmm,” the artificer reached out to touch her ears but was swatted away. “What was the incantation?” she then asked instead.

“The what?”

“The wooords that the sor-ce-rer saaaid to cuuurse you,” she clarified like a patronizing teacher.

“I don't know,” the cat grumbled.

“In future, that's the sort of thing you'll want to remember.”

“I was like ten! And it's kind of hard to remember the exact phrasing of ancient gibberish being thrown at you when your adoptive mother is turning you into a monster because you kissed her _real_ daughter literally like twice. Even though she suggested it! But nooo, Adora gets a sword of power and I get a curse because of fucking course!”

“A sword of power you say?” the artificer perked up, suddenly very intrigued.

“Don't bother, she's basically married to that thing. Believe me, I've tried,” she gritted out, trying once again to rein it in. If nothing else this annoying little cave dweller at least wasn't easily fazed by shouting. Nevertheless, a small pout escaped her as she pushed the exciting thought of a magic sword not made by herself aside. For the moment at least.

“Usually curses like this are broken by true love's kiss or true love's tears or some other bodily fluid from your true love. Humans are gross like that.”

“Yeah, like I said, tried that. Didn't go so well,” she mumbled.

“Without an incantation, curses _are_ tricky, which I guess is the point, but honestly, sorcerers are _so_ pretentious. It's not like they can't use plain words, ancient speak just makes them feel more 'important'. Can't blame you for getting on one's bad side, it speaks for you actually,” the artificer smiled in what was probably supposed to be encouragement.

“You weren't listening to a word I said, were you?”

“Not until you said 'sword of power', no.”

The stranger sighed.

“I'll take you through the Whispering Woods, can you help me or not?”

The artificer stared in amazement.

“How did you know that's what I wanted?”

“You really need to get out more.”

“Correct!” she planted herself firmly on her feet for the first time. “Out and to the library of Krytis! The biggest collection of knowledge on the continent! Rows and rows of books with information on absolutely everything, an entire city dedicated to the pursuit of science and-”

“That'll tell you how to un-curse me?” the cat interrupted her yearning before it mutated into joyful tears.

“Yes! I mean, maybe! I don't know! But I'm definitely going to look!”

“I'll take it.” Frankly, this was the furthest she had ever gotten in well over ten years of trying.

They shook hands to seal the deal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melog is a horse now and Darla is a donkey.

It was about an hour after dawn and the once again hooded figure of the cursed stranger was lazing against a tree nibbling an apple, just as Melog, her loyal steed, whom she had absolutely not stolen from the royal stables in Bright Moon, was nibbling on some grass beside her, spots of light dancing on his rich maroon coat through the leaves. The atmosphere had no right to be as idyllic as it was, seeing as how they were waiting by an abandoned sewer outlet outside the city walls. She was about halfway through her snack when at last the heavy iron grate opened. The artificer emerged, leading a heavily packed donkey by the reins, closely followed by the enchanted armor.

“You're late.”

“Sorry, packing took longer than expected.” She patted the donkey.

“What is all that?”

“Just the essentials, I promise. I got rid of a lot for your sake, didn't I, Darla?” she cooed at the donkey, who pointedly ignored her.

“Uh-huh. And where's your horse?”

“Don't need one when I have Emily.” This time she patted the armor, who was wearing a harness with a sort of seat on the back. Not unlike the sort mothers would use to carry infants, the stranger mused. “And look, I fixed her.”

The armor bowed so the artificer could violently shake and pull at the helmet without success. “You should apologize for stabbing her by the way.”

“She's an inanimate... well, an animate object.”

Emily's owner gasped in shock and horror at the insult to what she considered to be a close friend.

“You know what, fine,” she got up and took an exaggerated bow, “My sincerest apologies for attacking you in such a vile and excessive manner. I hope you can find it in you nonexistent heart to forgive me.”

To her surprise, the armor bowed back. Maybe she wasn't just a pile of magic metal after all.

The artificer grinned widely.

“I also fixed these,” and she unwrapped a rag from her falchions, reforged and freshly polished.

She didn't try to hide her astonishment.

“When did you...”

“I couldn't sleep from all the excitement so I didn't! Look at this:” She snatched up the half eaten apple and merely placed it on top of one of the blades she was holding face up and let go. Even with no force behind it, rather than falling off either side, the sword cut through the fruit with no resistance.

The cat was awestruck and took her blades to test them. They felt at once definitely like hers, same balance, same measurements and at the same time lighter, more attuned to her, more powerful. She also noticed the new blacksmith's sigil at the bottom of the blade, a sword inside a seven-pointed star, and on the same spot on the other side the word “cat”.

“Personalized engravings always make for better enchantments but I forgot to ask your name so...” the blacksmith apologized.

“I don't have one,” she replied, matter-of-factly.

“So what do people call you?”

“Thief, scoundrel, crazy, freak, monster...”

“That's no good. What do your friends call you?”

“I'll let you know as soon as I find one.”

The artificer made a disgruntled noise.

“I'm just going to keep calling you Cat then. Or maybe Cat...a...ara...Cat...ra. Catra.”

“Inspired,” Catra deadpanned.

“Thank you,” she smiled, genuinely flattered.

“Catra. Sure, whatever. What do I call you, besides annoying?”

“Entrapta.”

The first step of their journey was to exit the Drylian mountains. From there they would cross the hilly prairie of Erelandia – a vassal state of the Kingdom of Bright Moon, the most powerful on the continent – in northeastern direction until they reached the Whispering Woods, a veritable ocean of trees, which split the continent in twain and could only be traversed safely by a select few experienced guides. Anyone who couldn't find such a guide had to divert all the way to the west coast and sail past the woods, through the kingdom of Salineas, which had a reputation for being... fickle about who they let into their realm. They could afford to be, because the east coast was out of the question for most, since the mighty Blue mountains formed a natural border well into the arctic seas of the northern reach, where it was too dangerous to sail.

Catra and Entrapta would have to traverse those mountains too, but they would do so further southwest, where a few passes had roads built over them. Treacherous, frozen roads, but roads nevertheless. Once they were over the mountains it was only a stone toss to Krytis, which was nestled in one of the northern valleys, where it was safe from invasions from both the nomads that inhabited the Northern Reach and the various kingdoms around them and thus it had been able to foster a quiet, peaceful spirit more suited to higher pursuits than the often squabbling kingdoms on the other side of the woods.

All in all, if everything went according to plan, they should reach Krytis in about five weeks. Catra explained all of this to Entrapta as they got underway, who listened intently and took furious notes on a scroll. Once Catra had concluded their itinerary – she wanted to reach the first major town on their way, Elberon, in five days – she fell silent and automatically began to drift into the zoned out state she had learned to assume while just riding along like this, trusting Melog to carry her, equally indifferent to the rocky landscape that passed by slowly as to her own thoughts, which more often than not weren't helpful anyway.

Or that is what would have happened if, not twenty minutes out of Dryl, she hadn't been rudely reminded by the fact that she was stuck with a travel companion this time.

“Sooo, what do we talk about?” Entrapta asked from atop her ridiculous piggybacking contraption.

“Nothing.”

“Excellent! I'm developing this new axiom that mathematically, nothing is something. The proof is still in progress but I hope by the time we get to Krytis I can present their head mathematician with the new number I have invented to represent nothing. I call it: Null.” She made a dramatic gesture as if she saw the word written out in front of her.

“I mean we don't talk.”

“Oh,” she looked a little crestfallen, “but social protocol dictates that we engage in pleasant conversation in order to develop and profit from synergistic tendencies that will substantially optimize our cooperation and coexistence.”

Catra made a face like she had just been clocked with a dictionary. Unabridged edition.

“It's a bonding exercise.”

“Yeah, no. I'm not looking for any bonds right now. Or ever,” she gave Melog a tap to go a little faster.

Entrapta pulled out her scroll again and wrote something new. She skimmed through her notes, exclaimed a loud “aha!” and encouraged Emily to catch up once more.

“My file says that you humans require social interaction in order to function normally. I was correct.”

Catra didn't acknowledge her argument and asked instead:

“Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Like what?”

“'You humans' like you're not one of those?”

At this, Entrapta had to chuckle.

“Of course I'm not human!”

Catra looked her up and down, trying to find pointy ears or a hint of horns or something else that would identify as anything other than. To no avail.

“You're a... dwarf?” she tried anyway.

“I am pretty hairy but not where it counts unfortunately,” she grinned, pointing at her utterly beardless chin.

Catra inhaled sharply, looking absolutely anywhere else.

“I definitely didn't need to know that.”

“See, that's exactly what I mean. There's no way we can be the same species because your strange little human brains work in such indecipherable ways. I mean, you can't even remember your own name but you do have room to remember a rule that forbids conversations about hair! It's so weird. Fascinating, don't get me wrong, but weird.”

“It's not that I can't remember my name,” Catra snapped, “I just sort of... lost it when I got cursed.”

A cramped silence settled between them.

Eventually Entrapta mumbled an apology, which Catra acknowledged with a grunt.

“I will grant you that humans don't make a lick of sense though,” she added.

After that, Emily slowed down to walk a few paces behind Melog as Entrapta dedicated herself to silently scribbling in her magic scroll.

A twinge of guilt tugged at Catra.

“One question,” she held up a finger for emphasis.

“Huh?”

“You can ask me one question and that'll be our 'bonding exercise' for the day.”

She could practically smell Entrapta brighten up behind her.

“Tell me about Adora. Where does she live?”

“She's the personal guard of the Princess of Bright Moon. And you still can't have the sword of power.”

“Wow, this bonding thing is super effective! My understanding was that reliable mind-reading takes years and years of interaction to develop.” She took more notes. Then stopped, thought for a bit and cackled deviously as if she had just come up with an ingenious idea.

Under her mask, Catra smirked.

“I'll give you this one for free: What you're planning right now won't work. I've got a horse and impeccable hunting instincts. You've got a noisy armor that leaves footprints deeper than my self-loathing. You wouldn't make three leagues towards Bright Moon before I caught you.

Entrapta couldn't decide whether to be perturbed or impressed at her “mind reading” skills and started murmuring something about enchanted shoe soles.

They made camp in a small grove of beech trees that had a convenient creek nearby. They hadn't quite made it to the little farming village Catra had aimed for but she had wanted to take it a little easy on Entrapta for the first day and any time they lost now could easily be made up for once they reached the well-kept roads of the Erelandian plains.

“I'll get a fire going,” she announced, having finished unsaddling Melog and given him and Darla each half a carrot for a treat.

“Ooh, use this,” Entrapta zipped to one of the many saddle bags she had just freed Darla of and offered Catra a tinderbox.

“That's ok, I've got my own.”

“This one's better. Every time you light a fire with it it's a different color!” She was clearly very proud of this invention.

“Ok... and next time I need a pyrotechnics show, I'll let you know,” Catra replied, mildly bemused.

“Those fires also burn longer, hotter and make smoke that smells of flowers.”

She opened, then closed her mouth, relented and took the fancy tinderbox.

“Should I put up the tent?” Entrapta offered.

“No need, it's not gonna rain.”

Her companion glanced up at the very overcast sky, as it had been all day.

“How do you know?”

Catra shrugged.

“Instinct.”

Entrapta hummed dubiously.

“I think I'm gonna put up the tent anyway.”

“Your wasted time,” the rogue shrugged again. Secretly she was relieved that Entrapta was so enthusiastic to help. She balked at the idea at having to do everything for someone and pamper them while they sat there and twiddled their thumbs. And even though she was fairly certain she had never done it before, Entrapta managed to build a decent tent in no time, nor did Catra miss her being observant of rather than repulsed by the grisly process of butchering the rabbit she had caught for dinner. Speaking of, there was something to be said for the taste of meat roasted in a pink fire that smelt of roses.

“Right, time for bed,” Catra yawned, carefully hiding her fangs behind a polite hand.

“You go ahead, I'm not tired yet.”

“Suit yourself, but we're packing up at dawn.”

“Ok. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Catra disappeared into the tent while Entrapta made herself comfortable against a tree trunk and pulled out her scroll and writing implement which in the modern world would be called a pen but she had named it an “ink stick”. She crossed out the title of her file on camping that was currently visible and wrote “Blank” instead. All the ink seemed to drain from the page, making space to add a new file to her collection:

_“Travel Log: Day 1”_

She stayed up writing long into the night and it did not rain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cadet trio as antagonists because why not.

The next two days passed in much the same fashion. The terrain gradually began to not so much flatten as smooth out with their passing from acidic, ore-laden rocks to older formations of gentler, chalkier stone that had been more thoroughly massaged by the elements over the millennia and become welcoming to dense vegetation. In the same manner, the two travelers began to grow used to each other's presence and started to develop a division of labor when it came to setting up and breaking down camps. Catra was also relieved to note that Entrapta wasn't always as chatty and bubbly as that first day. Once the initial excitement had worn off and she figured out that her long rides on Emily's back left her with ample time to solve her little math problems or keep files on everyone and everything, she calmed significantly. Perhaps this trip would be bearable after all.

It was their last camp before Elberon and as always, Entrapta had stayed up late to update her travel log. It was well past midnight when she finished and although she was dead tired she decided she needed to stretch her legs for a bit before she had any chance of rest. She strolled off into the darkness, out of the shadow of the overgrown boulder they had settled beside. She decided to climb it, for the view if nothing else, since it was a clear night and the moon, more than half full, illuminated the rustling grasslands starkly. Enough dirt had accumulated on the side of the boulder that the wind usually blew from to make it a fairly smooth ascent, but just as her eyes peeked over the top she froze.

There, maybe a hundred strides away, three figures were moving towards their camp. It was almost impossible to make out any details but they certainly weren't walking normally but sort of slow, cautious perhaps. A bad, constricted feeling settled in Entrapta's chest. Was this that mythical sensation Catra called “instinct”?

At any rate, she felt strongly she ought to be near her and Emily right now and quickly scrambled back down the boulder the way she came. Back in camp, she quietly told her armored guardian that there were people coming and that she should ready herself, whether they were friendly, which she of course hoped, or not. After only a moment's hesitation, she decided to wake Catra as well. Even if she was just being paranoid due to a lack of sleep, her guide would want to know about these strangers.

She squatted by her sleeping spot where the cat was curled up in that particular way she liked to sleep in and she was even doing that little half purr thing on the exhales cats sometimes do. For all her usual grumpy frigidity, she could be really quite adorable.

“Catra,” she whispered very quietly, already assuming she would have to repeat it louder, but even cursed cats are light sleepers.

“Hmm? Whazzit?” she slurred, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with the palm of her hand.

“I just thought you should know, there are some people coming.”

She was on her feet and fully alert in seconds.

“Which way?”

“That way,” she pointed south, the way they had come.

Catra grabbed her swords, always waiting at the head of her sleeping spot, made sure the bandages hiding her disfigurement were still in place and strode outside to crouch behind a slightly elevated patch of shrubbery. One glance with her feline eyes at the now well advanced group told her everything she needed to know. They had their weapons drawn and were advancing with the quiet urgency of someone hoping to maintain the element of surprise. Too bad for them.

With practiced efficiency, she saddled up Melog and untied his reins, who was very offended at the rude interruption of his doze.

“Sorry, big guy. Extra treats later, I promise,” she murmured before turning around to Entrapta.

“Get on.”

“What, why?”

“You need to get out of here. Melog will take you to safety.”

“What about-”

“We'll be fine. Go,” she more or less pulled Entrapta's right foot into the stirrup herself.

“But I don't know how to ride,” she whined back.

At that moment an arrow whizzed through the air and uselessly bounced off of Emily's pauldron.

“They've seen us! Go, go, go!” A female voice shouted.

“Clench your thighs and hold on to something, he'll do the rest,” she helped Entrapta swing her other leg over, grinning to herself. “Heh. That's what she said.”

“Who said?”

She gave Melog a firm clap on the rear and Entrapta squeaked when he took off into the night. Just then, the sound of metal clashing echoed against the rocks as Emily's sword met with that of an at least equally tall Dragonborn. Catra drew her weapons just in time to deflect a flail swung her way by a woman about the same height as her but heavier set and with her hair pulled back into a tail of dreadlocks where it wasn't shaved on the sides, mercenary-style. They got locked into combat and bravely held their ground but the woman was surprisingly quick on her feet in exchange for thinner armor, which she in turn compensated for with expert use of a shield.

Meanwhile, the one thing a heavily armored knight with a big sword like Emily wasn't equipped to deal with was a bigger knight with an absolutely humongous claymore to swing around. Then there was the third guy, the archer, who at the moment couldn't easily shoot without endangering his comrades but there was no reason to believe he wouldn't join the fray on the ground and tip the balance in their favor.

Catra's opponent successfully faked her out with her flail and and charged forward with her shield. She had no choice but to hack straight into it or get knocked to the ground even though she knew that it would mean losing her left sword as it got stuck in the shield and the mercenary wrenched it out of her grip. So she took the sacrifice as an opportunity to leap back and disengage. Not to run away but to come to the aid of Emily who also had her shield out but was still being pushed to her knees by the Dragonborn. Catra made use of his preoccupation and went for the back of the knees, as she always did with big lugs like that, if just to bring them down a peg.

He yowled as a ligament tore and Entrapta's knight broke free.

“Emily, switch!” Catra yelled and though she couldn't respond verbally she made clear she understood by immediately hefting her shield around towards the other one, who had been about to force Catra back off her comrade. The two shields collided and the woman staggered back, raised her shield in time to block Emily's incoming swing but weakened as it was by Catra's earlier blow in the same spot it split apart and she grunted in pain at the impact. She had to retreat until her back was almost against the boulder.

Meanwhile, the rogue had been running circles around the enemy knight. She hadn't gotten any more blows in but he was tiring himself out as he had to keep whirling his big, heavy sword around just to keep her at a distance. And all the while Catra had been steering them closer to where her other sword lay in the dirt, so now she could pick it back up in a roll and grin victoriously in way that was visible even through just her eyes. With one sword used in a simple redirection of a blow that could no longer be as powerful as the reptilian man might have wanted, the other's tip found itself past the bottom of his shinguard and into the foot on his already weakened leg. He roared and took two stumbling steps back.

“Rogelio, fall back!” The woman shouted. Clearly she was right to be the trio's leader as she recognized when a battle was lost, where her subordinate was about to charge again fueled on by the heat of battle alone. She also managed to get in a hit that prevented Catra from profiting off of his weakness, even while being chased by Emily.

The two mercenaries retreated but Catra wasn't about to let them recover and try anything like this again. Emily followed her lead and they pushed forward. But the archer hadn't been completely idle this entire time and made his way to the top of the boulder from where he now shot, just grazing Catra's sleeve.

“Go, Lonnie, I got this!” he yelled and fired another arrow. This one didn't stand a chance now that they saw it coming and was blocked by Emily's shield.

“Kyle! No! Run away!” the woman, Lonnie, shouted, real concern in her voice.

“The fuck you will,” and with the speed and grace only becoming of her, Catra raced towards the boulder, climbed the steep side of it and leapt for Kyle's back before he could make his escape.

On the ground, Emily, now on her own, had to give up her pursuit and let the others escape. She kept a watchful eye out, just in case, while Catra questioned their prisoner.

She tossed him on the ground and placed one foot on his chest.

“Kyle, was it?”

He swallowed hard as he looked into those strange, cold eyes.

“I'll make this easy for you. Every second you don't talk you lose one noodle,” she not so subtly lifted his skinny little arm with the back of her sword, “that gives you a grand total of five seconds, if you catch my drift.”

“I'll do whatever you say! Please don't hurt me...” tears were gathering in his eyes.

“Who sent you and why?”

Melog stopped galloping through the dead of night after what felt like an eternity of holding on for dear life and Entrapta slid off his back like jelly off a wall. Jelly was also exactly what her legs felt like, so she lay down flat on the blissfully solid ground and waited for the rush to subside. She didn't get to calm down for very long however as Melog bumped his nose against her cheek, possibly to ascertain whether she was still alive. She “pet” but more accurately tapped his face twice, as if she were afraid to offend him. He retreated with a huff and a second later started nibbling on her hair, which promptly slapped him away.

He huffed again but didn't give up his quest for the treats he had been promised and continued to pester Entrapta until she gave in, sat up and leaned against the tree they had stopped beside.

“I don't have any treats,” she apologized.

He continued to nuzzle against her and it occurred to Entrapta that maybe he just wanted to be pet in earnest, so she tried itching him under the bridle like she had seen Catra do. He puffed in what was probably contentment, based on how he kept pushing and nibbling at her jerkin. She was actually starting to enjoy petting him and so it took her a while to realize that what he was actually doing was trying to open her breast pocket with his teeth so he could pull out her pouch of glazed peanuts – her favorite snack and apparently also his.

She pulled it out and he immediately snapped for it, like an impatient child.

“Bad horse,” she chided, then hesitated, “Are you even allowed to have these?”

He blew his snout in the horse equivalent of “yes, definitely, absolutely, no doubt about it” and when Entrapta still looked dubious tried to bribe her with more nuzzling and pleading looks from those bright blue eyes. She giggled at his advances and decided that, if Darla could occasionally eat them, Melog should be able to as well.

She offered a peanut which was immediately swiped away by a big, slimy tongue then flicked one into her own mouth, much to Melog's chagrin, before giving him another and so on until they had emptied the little pouch. Not a problem, she could get more tomorrow in town.

Tomorrow. She was inadvertently brought back to the reality of her situation and naturally began to worry, which was a strange feeling, she usually hadn't much reason to do so in her day to day life. She decided she didn't like it and started to run mental calculations on how far away her friends were, how long it would take them to find her and so on. That was if they won of course. She knew Emily was nigh indestructible and she had seen Catra fight, but still... she could only hope her enchanted weapons had made enough of a difference to balance out a three on two fight.

The noise of a cracking twig was like thunder in the silence and Entrapta shot up the tree at speeds that would have made any squirrel green with envy. Hidden in the foliage, she strained to see what had made the noise and if she ought to be as terrified as she suddenly was. Melog didn't seem bothered, lazily munching away on some grass.

After a while, Entrapta too became convinced it was nothing but stayed in the tree. Knees pulled close, wrapped in a cocoon of her own hair.

“ _I'm not built for this,”_ she sighed silently, slowly knocking the back of her head against the tree trunk over and over. Not hard enough to hurt, it was actually quite soothing in a way, even if it didn't help her predicament at all.

“There you are,” Catra's voice announced with relief.

Again Entraptta's fragile nerves overreacted and threw her out of the tree with a yelp. She landed painfully on her back, followed by a pine cone to the forehead, just to drive the point home.

Emily was there in a flash to help her up and she took the opportunity to snuggle into the cooling embrace of metal in all its unyielding strength and reliability.

“What were you doing up there?” Catra asked.

“Counting ants,” she replied, uncommonly deadpan and Catra couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not, so she simply acknowledged it with a nod and turned away to check on Melog.

“Oh, you're hurt,” Entrapta let go of Emily.

Catra followed her gaze and for the first time noticed the tear in her sleeve from where Kyle's arrow had narrowly missed her and just a hint of one of the darker stripes on her arms was peeking out.

“It's just the sleeve, don't worry about it.”

“Let me stitch it up. It'll only take a minute,” she tugged at Catra's arm to inspect the damage.

“Tomorrow. It's dark anyway...” Catra trailed off when she noticed the hand she had just pulled off of herself was shaking pretty badly. “What's up with you?”

“I'm just not used to this much... excitement in my life,” she apologized, quickly pulling away her hand.

Of course she wasn't. She was a cave hermit whose best friend was an empty suit of armor and just because she made weapons all day, it didn't mean she was used to being confronted with them. Or being attacked in the middle of the night and having to run for her life. In her better judgment, Catra decided to postpone telling Entrapta that their attackers were bounty hunters hired by Verren to bring her back to Dryl, by force if necessary. She had after all been his most valuable asset and considered Catra a thief of said asset. It was disgusting. And she doubted this information would do much to calm her companion at that moment.

Behind her, Darla brayed loudly, anxious to be rid of all the baggage they had hastily strapped onto her after the fight in their rush to catch up with Melog. The shaky artificer jumped into relative safety of Catra's arms, who reflexively caught her.

“You need to calm down,” she said, peeling Entrapta off of herself and putting a healthy bit of distance back between them.

“How do I do that?”

Catra could tell she was fraying at the edges, voice subtly uneven, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

“Breathe,” she explained, “slowly.”

In her periphery, she noticed Melog approaching. He had a way of sensing distress, usually Catra's, and could be eerily effective at calming her down. She would rest her head against his neck and splay her arms over his sides, matching her own breath to the slow heaving of his ribs. Entrapta seemed to prefer stroking his cheeks in a methodical rhythm to counter the jitters, which was at least enough to keep her occupied while the rogue considered their options.

She had made sure to wipe and misdirect their tracks on the way and given that Rogelio was limping, Lonnie's shield arm was at least bruised to the point of uselessness, if not outright broken, and Kyle was probably still crying after her interrogation, (she hadn't had the heart to kill someone so weak), they were probably as safe as the could be for now.

“We might as well stay here for what's left of the night. You should try and get some rest.”

“Does that mean you-”

“They escaped but they'll be licking their wounds for a while.”

“I don't think that's something most... average humans do.” Entrapta smiled weakly in an attempt to be sensitive.

“Neither do I!” Catra replied, affronted, “ok, maybe once,” she admitted quietly, “but it's an expression, nitwit.”

She took Entrapta's bed roll off of Darla's back and tossed it at her.

“Rest,” she repeated.

“I don't think that's happening tonight.”

“Just do it,” Catra grumbled.

In no real state to argue, the artificer gave in and crawled into bed. She stared into the moonlit sky, as far from sleep as she could possibly be. To her surprise, Catra sat down right next to her with her legs crossed.

“Give me your hand.”

Entrapta looked utterly bewildered.

“Did you get hit on the head during the fight?”

Catra's reply was was sincere, almost shy.

“No, it's something Adora used to do when I had nightmares,” she looked away, “it's so you know I'm watching over you even when your eyes are closed,” she repeated the words Adora had said to her so many years ago, when they were still so young and carefree and the only curse on them had been Shadow Weaver.

Reluctantly, the artificer's hand laid itself in Catra's waiting one. The effect was somewhat lessened by the fact that they were both wearing gloves but it was better than nothing.

Red eyes gazed up at her expectantly.

“Well, do it. Close your eyes,” she ordered.

After a moment's hesitation, Entrapta obeyed.

Catra pulled down her mask.

“This is a one time thing. You won't bring this up ever, got it?” She said and Entrapta nodded, though not sure what to.

She got her answer a moment later, when quietly, barely above a whisper in fact, Catra began to sing an old lullaby. The artificer frowned and fought to keep her eyes shut but wouldn't have known what to say anyway and thus had little choice but to let herself be sung to sleep.

The song was only three verses long, so Catra repeated the whole thing three times over and then simply hummed the melody again and again until she first felt Entrapta's hand slacken, then heard her breathing even out and eventually saw her face relax fully. Catra had never taken the time to properly study it but as she did now the thought that it could be considered anything but unflinchingly human became inconceivable to her.

She sighed and gazed away into the woods, even as her thumb unconsciously rubbed circles onto Entrapta's thick smithing gloves.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's tragic backstory time.

They passed through the city gates of Elberon in the early afternoon, slightly ahead of schedule in fact, thanks to their nightly excursion. Although she couldn't have slept more than four or five hours, those had done wonders for Entrapta's mood, which was to say she was back to her most energetic, annoying self. Though she would never admit it, it was a relief to Catra, at least there didn't seem to be any lasting damage from her experience the night before.

While she spent the afternoon restocking their supplies and trying to ascertain whether their pursuers might have already arrived before them, Entrapta went against Catra's explicit orders and ran a few errands of her own.

Catra found her past dusk at a farrier's cooing at Melog and feeding him peanuts while he had his horseshoes replaced. Clearly, they had found something to bond over.

“Didn't I tell you to stay at the inn?”

“I figured even if they saw me they couldn't recognize me. They've never seen me before after all.”

Catra picked up a strand of her mauve hair.

“You've got a pretty distinctive look.”

“Hmm...” she seemed to realize her error and promptly glossed over it, “well, I had an idea and the inn doesn't have a forge, so...”

Catra leaned over the farrier's shoulder as he worked on the last hoof.

“Just looks like normal horseshoes to me, which he didn't need. I just had them changed two weeks ago.”

“I told your missus that too, but she insisted,” the farrier threw in.

“She's not my... never mind. Just hurry up.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“That's what he said?” Entrapta tried.

“Possibly, but not the way you're thinking.”

“I'll figure it out,” she grinned, “Anyway, these will last a while, I made sure of that, among other things,” Entrapta's hair lifted her so she could rest her elbows on Melog's back, “riding was a truly awful experience last night so I thought you could teach me how to do it properly.”

“Even if I, or Melog for that matter, felt like doing that, we don't have time. We're kind of in a hurry, remember?”

“I'm pretty sure Melog's on my side,” she fed him another peanut, “and we can do that on the way, can't we? You can ride on Emily while I practice.”

“I'm not getting in that seat no matter how many fancy horseshoes you make me.”

“Ok, but you will teach me, yes? So I'm ready if anything else happens.”

_Fair point._

“I'll think about it.”

Entrapta clapped her hands in delight.

Elberon was a sizable town but they didn't want to tempt fate and planned to leave at the crack of dawn. Thus and because especially Catra was exhausted after having kept watch all night, they turned in right after dinner. The inn didn't have any free double rooms and she wasn't going to pay for two singles if she could just sleep on the floor, it wasn't like it was any different from what she was used to, so that wasn't why she she couldn't find sleep. Nor did Entrapta for that matter, although that was perhaps less unexpected. She kept mumbling to herself, like she sometimes did to help her “order her ideas when they were going too fast in her head” and Catra found herself unable to tune it out like she normally did.

“Can you be quiet? I'm trying to get some sleep here,” she muttered.

“So am I but I'm stuck on this problem...”

“I'm not gonna sing again.”

“I wasn't-”

“I said it was a one time thing and I meant it.”

“I know, that's not-”

“Ugh I mean if there's no other way to get you to shut up I guess I will. But we're not making this a habit.”

Entrapta leaned up on one elbow so she could look down at Catra on the floor beside the bed with a lopsided smile.

“I was going to suggest we work on it together but you can sing for me after if you want.”

“Oh.” Catra turned away, mildly mortified. “Good. And no. It's not like I'm much use at your nerdy crap anyway.”

“I was stuck thinking about Adora.”

 _Relatable,_ Catra thought to herself. But then she remembered that this was still Entrapta and rolled her eyes.

“If this is about the sword again, I swear I'm gonna punch through that wall and throw a brick at you.”

“It's not. It's about the curse.”

“What about it?”

“Adora is your adoptive sister, right?”

Catra mistakenly sensed oncoming judgment.

“Technically, but Shadow Weaver always treated me more like a slave than a daughter, so we never really thought of ourselves that way and...” she realized she was digging herself into a hole and reset. “Look, it's not weird. We were just kids figuring things out. Best friends who developed feelings for each other.”

“But you consider her your one true love.”

“Because she is.”

“And it was definitely mutual?”

Catra shot up in offense.

“Yes, of course! What are you implying?”

“Nothing. I'm trying to figure out why Adora wasn't cursed in the same way.”

Catra scoffed.

“As if Shadow Weaver would ever hurt her precious, destined-for-greatness, darling daughter when she already had a punching bag.”

“That seems... unfair.”

“Yes.” She let the silence hang for a moment before she lay back down. “There, now go to sleep.”

The lack of rustling behind her indicated that Entrapta wasn't following her example.

“You said this happened more than ten years ago but you can't be older than 24 maybe? 25?”

“22.”

“So you would have been a child then.”

“Yep.”

“I know I don't understand your kind very well but I'm fairly certain cursing children is generally frowned upon.”

“Sure hope so.”

Again, a beat passed. Entrapta hummed and tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“How strange.”

“That's one word for it.”

“Yes, I didn't think it was possible to dislike a person I've never even met.”

That earned her a mirthless chuckle.

“Maybe there's hope for you after all, steel-for-brains.”

“Ooh, a nickname. Are we having a bonding moment?” Entrapta asked, suddenly excited.

“If we were, you just ruined it.”

She ignored the disappointed noise from behind her in favor of resuming her quest for sleep. Wishful thinking of course, now that she had indulged the nosy artificer enough to wet her appetite.

“One more question.”

Catra groaned into her pillow.

“Why are you like this?”

“I have several theories...”

“Please spare me.”

“Ok,” Entrapta grinned audibly, “but I should know as much about the curse as I can if I'm going to break it, don't you think?”

That did unfortunately make some amount of sense. Catra uncurled herself onto her back, defeated.

“What?”

“Tell me what happened when you tried to break the curse.”

“What for? It didn't work anyway.”

“Yes, but _why_?”

Catra sighed and thought back to that night four years ago.

It had taken her years to find Adora again and it was only through a lucky happenstance that she did in the end. Someone had mentioned her name in reference to a paladin who had been making waves with her miraculous deeds as of late. As unlikely as it had sounded, it had been her only lead in a very long time and she followed the no doubt embellished stories about the giant knight in blinding white armor, whose hair was woven of gold and whose hand wielded a sword of crystal, aglow in its own power as it vanquished evil and protected the innocent wherever it went. Far and wide across the kingdom of Bright Moon she chased them until she found their source in the capital itself. The first time she had seen the paladin in all her glory, smiling regally at the crowd as she stood beside the princess and her closest friend – a master marksman by all accounts – during some royal address, Catra's jaw had actually dropped. She barely looked like the girl she remembered and yet it was definitely her. But even more beautiful, almost painfully so in fact. A goddess among men.

She had slunk away, back to her inn and started crying the moment she was alone, overwhelmed by relief that her quest was finally over, pride at the magnificence her Adora had been able to grow into and profound apprehension about having to meet that same magnificence as her own cursed self, still carrying the shame of running away and leaving her alone with the monster that was their mother all those years ago.

Sneaking into the castle was surprisingly easy, all things considered. So was finding the royal guard barracks, at the top floor of which were the officers' quarters, where Adora lived. Catra nimbly climbed the wall and carefully peeked over Adora's window sill. She was sat at a small desk in profile from Catra's perspective, her sword reverently resting on its own stand on top of the dresser beside her. She was doing paperwork, like the perfect paladin she was but more importantly she looked different than she had earlier. For one thing she was shorter, not much taller than Catra herself and she was, for lack of a better word, less shiny. Still the prettiest girl in the world as far as she was concerned, but person-pretty, not too-perfect-to-be-entirely-human-pretty.

Although the window was invitingly open, Catra weighed her options and decided that rather than trying to sneak inside and possibly be mistaken for a burglar or assassin, she should simply knock.

She perched herself on the sill and that movement in Adora's periphery was enough to make her leap into action, sword drawn in seconds.

“Wait! It's me,” she pulled off her hood to reveal the thick mane of hair she'd always had, with the addition of her cat ears of course, which, along with the heterochromia was all it took to make Adora recognize her instantly.

Catra remembered the tone of utter disbelief in her voice when she had said her name then, though the curse made her unable to recall the name itself, forever caught on the tip of her tongue.

“Hey, Adora.” She greeted in turn, maintaining at least a veneer of nonchalance.

Adora lowered her weapon, which Catra took as an invitation in.

“What are you doing here? And how did you get _there_?” She glanced at the window with its three story drop below.

Catra raised one of her half-gloved hands and extended her claws with a smirk, but Adora reflexively jerked back, so she put them away again.

“Just stopping by to see for myself if the rumors were true. Neat little magic trick you got there.”

“It's not a trick.”

“If you say so.” She took a few steps into the room and scanned the minimal furnishings, tidy and practical, just as Adora liked them. “So, how have you been?”

“Busy. Still am, so if we could skip the small talk...”

“Right, busy helping people. That's what you do now.” There was the beginning undertone of a request in her voice.

“Where I can.”

“Good, because...” she looked her in the eyes with all the sincerity she could muster, “I need your help.”

Adora was naturally protective, especially of Catra, even if it had been years since she had last stood up for her, which now fought against her surprise and suspicion at this entirely unexpected encounter.

“With what?”

Catra took another step forward so they were now at arm's length from each other.

“I've talked to many mages and they all say you're the only one who can break this curse.”

Adora glanced at her sword and shook her head slowly.

“I... no. That's not in my power.”

Catra cupped her face between her hands and corrected her gaze back to her.

“Not the dumb sword. You.”

Her hands were pulled away gently but insistently.

“I'm sorry. Even if I could, I promised mother not to help you.”

“What?” Every muscle in Catra's body tensed with dread.

“She put that spell on you to help you better yourself. That's your destiny.”

The way she spoke as though she were repeating an obvious fact broke something in Catra.

“She turned me into a monster!”

“Your appearance is just a reflection of the corruption in your heart. Showing you that was the whole point. But you haven't improved at all, even after all these years.” Underneath her judgment here was a hint of pity and somewhere deep down, grief.

“You actually believe all that bullshit Shadow Weaver's been feeding you?!”

“Nobody's proven her wrong so far.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because I found _my_ destiny. Just like she predicted.”

It was then that the extent of Catra's failure dawned on her. Adora's mind was sharp but her feelings easy to ply and without her around to keep them in check, Shadow Weaver's whisperings had time to take root and fester unchallenged until Adora had learned to accept them as part of herself. And that damn sword only fed into those warped ideas. The thought occurred to her to snatch it out of her hand and bury it somewhere so deep that the worms would learn to chew metal before anyone found it again.

She must have been staring at it because Adora's sword arm pulled back, perversely protecting it with her body rather than the other way around.

“You should go now,” Adora decided.

Catra awoke from her reverie and closed the distance between them.

“No, I... I need to...” Her hands found their way back to Adora's face and neck and in a near panic, before she could be shoved off again, she pressed their lips together.

The paladin didn't reciprocate but didn't resist either and simply let her do what she thought she had to.

She pulled back and gazed down at her hands. They were still clawed. Then she felt her ears twitch in a way human ears could never as Adora's hand reached out to brush a tear off her cheek. When she looked up she found metallic blue eyes, glossy and unfathomably sad.

“I'm sorry, I'm not the person you remember.”

Catra's impassive face never left the ceiling as she recounted the story. Now concluded, she turned towards the bed. Somewhat to her surprise, it seemed Entrapta had been listening intently for once, judging by that focused stare of hers.

“And, did that reveal the vital clue? Can go to sleep now?” she asked sardonically. She wanted to be unconscious before the wave of remembered heartbreak had time to fully crash over her.

“Yes. I mean, for one thing, she is supposed to kiss you, not the other way around.”

“So what? I took the initiative. It's still true love's kiss and it didn't work.”

“No, it wasn't, but that certainly explains a lot.” She lay back down with her elbows folded behind her head.

And just like that, she had pushed every conceivable button Catra had. It was truly a talent.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?!” She was about two seconds away from shooting out of bed and grabbing Entrapta by the collar so she could better yell at her face, even if just to get a reaction more profound than idle curiosity out of her.

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

“Don't change the subject!”

“Well, if I thought my one true love in the world had given up on me and moved on with their life I'd be perpetually grumpy too.”

“I'm surprised you can even fathom something so _human_ ,” she snapped.

Entrapta hummed in agreement and sat back up, legs crossed underneath the blanket.

“True, my kind doesn't seem to experience love, but I've studied the subject extensively. You'll be happy to learn that, based on my research, like all the best things in life, true love isn't found, it's made. So you've got plenty of options!”

“What a horrifying thought,” Catra grumbled.

“Is it?” She sounded honestly surprised, “more horrifying than the idea of a soulmate?”

“What are you talking about, having a soulmate is everything; it's, you know...” she couldn't believe she was having this conversation with Entrapta of all people, “...romantic. True happiness and all that.”

“So how did you end up here?”

She didn't mean to do it, but Entrapta twisted the knife in Catra's heart even deeper.

“I'm maybe not the best example,” she gritted.

“Not just you. Think about it: Mathematically, only a fraction of people so tiny I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a name would ever even meet their soulmate and would therefore be able to attain happiness. And what if they're born 80 years apart? Or if they never realize they're meant for each other and spend their lives with someone else? Or if-”

“Ok, I get it already. Soulmates are dumb and make no sense. Congrats, you've outsmarted everyone. Now shut up.”

Entrapta's entire body language fell along with her expression, even her hair seemed to go a little more limp.

“I'm only trying to help,” she mumbled and wrapped herself in her hair and blanket, all interest in further conversation quelled.

“Stop trying to help with your mouth, it's not doing you any favors” her tone dialed back from hostile to merely cranky, “that's what you have your crafty artificer hands for, right?”

No response came, so she let it be and assumed her own preferred sleeping position curled up in a ball. Great, now she had that on her mind too. Sleep was quickly becoming a pipe dream.

Then very quietly, a whisper from up on the bed:

“That's what she said.”

Before she could smother it a snort escaped her, which was replied to with a snicker and they both found themselves chuckling, despite everything.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People get hurt (CW for gross injury stuff. It's really quite mild, I think, but just in case.)

The mighty river of Despondos had its source in the far west of the Drylian mountains and cut through the kingdom of Bright Moon, the plains of Erelandia and into the Whispering Woods before it emptied into the ocean. In other words, they would have to cross it eventually, which was why they were currently following it southwest towards the nearest bridge. It was a two-day detour from their north by northeastern course but a necessary one.

They had kept off the main road and picked up the pace significantly since they left Elberon in hopes of reaching the Woods before the bounty hunters caught up with them again. The Whispering Woods were Catra's turf after all and if she didn't want to be found in there she wouldn't be, even with her chaotic artificer in tow. She was holding up well, all things considered, Catra had taken to staying up with Entrapta as she wrote her log and she did find herself wondering what sort of things someone like that would write in their journal. From there she would inevitably end up staring into the fire and pondering Entrapta's words at the inn.

“ _It wasn't true love.”_

_Bullshit._

Vexed and exhausted she would lie down but then her ears caught Entrapta humming the lullaby to herself as she drifted off and an unwelcome squishy feeling would bloom in her chest. Despite everything, the cave goblin was growing on her. A little bit. Maybe.

_On the other hand..._

She shifted her head once again, trying to find a comfortable position but everything hurt, specifically the cloth around her head flattening her ears against her skull, which she hadn't been able to take off in weeks other than to wash.

She gave up on sleep and made her way out of the dilapidated little hut they were camping in – probably a fisherman's former home – past Emily keeping diligent watch and down to the river. There, she carefully unwrapped herself and winced as soon as her ears were free and the raw skin in the gap where they met her head cracked open. She carefully tried to assess the sores with her fingers, which found sticky yellow goo and open flesh. Warmth, moisture and friction against delicate skin was a bad combination. Some of her hair had gotten in there too, so she tried to pull it out, causing a sensation best compared to pulling a knife out of a jar of honey, except the honey was made of puss and pain.

She dabbed a cloth into the river and, as delicately as she could without being able to see, started to clean the sores. Bending her ears forward so she had room to maneuver hurt just as much as forcing them back and that wasn't even considering how much she hated having to touch them in the first place. They were so big and hairy and the same time thin and fragile. Everything about them was awful, despite the enhanced hearing, which presently informed her of the distinct sound of Entrapta's hair walking long before she thought to announce herself.

“Whatever it is, can it wait for like five minutes?” She grumbled.

“Emily woke me. She's worried you're hurt?” She was hanging from her lilac tresses, obviously not entirely awake yet.

“I'm fine.”

It was too dark for Entrapta to see anything until she was so close she was literally breathing down Catra's neck.

“Do you mind?” She shooed her out of her personal space and lifted the rag again to start on her other ear.

“That looks pretty nasty. Can I help?”

“Thanks for the input and no. Go back to the house, I'll be right over.”

Entrapta hesitated and watched as Catra moved left instead of right and poked herself right on a particularly inflamed spot. She covered whatever embarrassing noise she had been about to make with a sharp intake of breath. How could such a tiny injury hurt so much?

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, go away.”

She tried again and missed the part she was trying to get to entirely.

“Only it seems like-”

“Ok fine, you can help,” she snapped, only to immediately follow up with an apologetic sigh.

Entrapta didn't seem to register it as she had turned heel and run back to the house the second Catra had relented. She returned carrying their cooking pot, which she filled with water and beckoned Catra to follow back inside. She set the pot onto the embers of their fire – it was blue and smelled of Hyacinth today – and quickly fed it back to flame. She sat on her knees and Catra squatted down in front of her, half leaning on her arms, which were in turn resting on the floor between her legs.

The first thing the artificer did was produce one of her many spare hairbands – they tore at a record-setting rate, what with the constant movement – and pulled Catra's mane into a ponytail; a surprisingly painless process, even when individual strands were being plucked out of her wounds like needles because the fact that Entrapta was raking her bare fingers through her hair had stunned her stupid. She had never seen, let alone felt them and on some level, Catra had come to believe that Entrapta's hands were simply... private. They were her most precious tools after all, not meant for anyone else, so taking her gloves off was akin to-

She was making too much of this.

Next, Entrapta dipped a fresh rag into the slowly warming water behind her and leaned in to finish cleaning the sores, but as soon as she tried to touch them, her dumb cat ears kept dancing out of the way in that way only cat ears can.

Entrapta huffed in frustration, failing another attempt.

“Not my fault, it's a reflex.”

She reached out to grab one ear and hold it in place but Catra caught her wrist.

“Don't do that.”

Entrapta nodded and approached again. This time, Catra made a conscious effort to hold still but still jerked away at the pain when the rag did finally reach her.

“This is why I didn't become a surgeon,” Entrapta groaned, “how am I supposed to work with twitchy material like this?”

“You could not have put that in a worse way.”

“Funny, that's exactly what my teacher used to say. Now hold still.”

Without warning, Entrapta lunged and put her into a headlock, forcing her to fall forward onto her knees in the process. Naturally, she fought back, claws buried into Entrapta's back but they couldn't pierce the thick leather of her jerkin from this angle nor could she get any decent amount of leverage against the surprisingly strong arm around her.

“Hey! What's the big idea?” she barked.

“I'll be careful,” she promised warmly.

Unperturbed by her protests, Entrapta kept her like this, tucked away under her left arm as her right and her hair continued to work, now from a much better angle, while she was forced to glare uselessly at Entrapta's folded legs.

In an attempt to distract herself from the pain and humiliation she asked why Entrapta had wanted to become a surgeon.

“I thought learning how the human body worked would help me understand human minds better. But it wasn't for me. Too... gooey. And then my teacher threw me out because I drank the metal out of his thermometer.”

“You did _what_?” Without thinking she tried to look up, quickly meeting resistance.

“Again, that was exactly his reaction. Funny how similar you all are. He made me throw it up but I nearly died anyway. Turns out quicksilver is really, really poisonous. Who would have thought?”

“Everybody. Everybody would have thought that,” Catra deadpanned, “why would you even try something like that?”

Entrapta slowed down as she tried to reconstruct a train of thought many years old.

“I think I was just fascinated by the fact that metal could be liquid and wanted to make it a part of myself,” she shrugged, bobbing Catra's head, “I was still very small then, it made sense to me at the time. Tastes like grapefruit covered in pepper by the way.”

“You are a weird person, Entrapta.”

She received a giggle in response.

“Says the one with infected sores because she insists on wrapping herself in dirty bandages at all times.”

“That's not really my choice. I can't be seen with these,” she twitched her ears intentionally this time and instantly regretted it at the pain that shot through her head.

“I don't see why not, just say you're a weird-looking Tabaxi.”

“That wouldn't really help me blend in.”

“Hmm. Well, nobody's looking at you when you're asleep. Other than possibly me or Emily and we both already know what you look like.”

Catra remained silent. She was right of course. Even so, it just didn't feel right to be seen with them.

Entrapta had finished cleaning her wounds and opened a small tin of ointment to numb the pain and help the healing process. She was being careful like she promised but it still stung.

“Tell me more,” Catra urged, intent on keeping her mind busy.

“About what?”

“How did you end up studying to become a surgeon when you were still a child?”

“I asked.”

“And your parents just... allowed that?”

“I don't recall having parents.”

“Oh.”

A pause.

“So who raised you?”

“I'd have thought it's pretty obvious no one did,” she chortled.

“Touché.”

She figured she shouldn't pry and let it be, focusing instead on repositioning herself, as maintaining the tension in her body to fight against Entrapta's grasp, even nominally, was becoming uncomfortable and thus she resigned to submit herself to the artificer's care and sat down sideways, resting on her elbows.

“People liked having me around,” Entrapta elaborated after a little while, “I was a good child. I didn't talk much, never asked for anything and did whatever I was told. I fixed things and was given food in return. Very simple. Eventually I became a proper blacksmith, discovered I could do magic and here we are.”

She seemed quite unbothered retelling any of this but Catra was starting to piece together why Entrapta was so detached from humankind that she had ended up convincing herself she wasn't a part of it.

“So you basically popped out of the womb with a hammer and a pair of tongs in your hands ready to go,” she summarized, “sounds about right.”

Entrapta's fingers stopped moving and came to rest on the back of Catra's head. The rogue glanced up to see her focused on her hair as it pulled her headgear out of the pot, which she had at some point dumped into the hot water to boil clean, and now hung it up to dry, all without moving the rest of her body.

“Are you done?” She asked, stifling a yawn.

“Almost, I have to wait for the bandages to dry a little before I can enchant them and make them a bit more comfortable to wear.”

“I meant with me.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” her hand pulled away abruptly. The weight of her arm removed itself from Catra's neck quite ineffectually, as she found herself not so much freed from restraint as simply resting. She felt oddly sleepy, almost as if drugged, but it was merely a rare sense of relaxation, inner calm brought on by the simple act of someone taking the time to care for her.

Her downcast eyes were still idling on Entrapta's thigh. It looked comfortable. She could rest her head there without applying too much pressure to her ears. The fabric of her trousers had a pleasantly grainy texture without being scratchy and she let herself settle into the firm muscle underneath.

For her part, Entrapta only observed silently and smiled to herself when Catra curled up on the floor and buried her face in the crook of her leg. Nor did she follow her first instinct to pet her like she would any ordinary animal. Most importantly, once she had finished her work she followed cat etiquette rule number one – when a cat falls asleep on you, you cannot move until the cat does – in spite of her legs slowly losing all sensation. Eventually she too drifted off, still sitting upright, an ability trained through years of working herself to exhaustion.

“Why aren't we crossing here?” Entrapta was pointing at the only waist deep section of river they were riding along.

“The bridge is only a few hours away.”

“Well this is null hours away. Aren't we in a hurry?”

“We're not crossing. The river's dangerous.”

She watched a leaf flutter from a tree, land on the water and be carried away on the lazy current with the loving tenderness of mother cradling her newborn child.

Entrapta scratched her chin as she tried to mimic Catra's mind reading ability with the power of logical deduction.

“Are you scared of water, Catra?”

“I'm not scared of anything,” came the standard issue tough guy reply. “But how do you think your rust bucket there would fare?”

Said rust bucket sidled up to Melog so Entrapta could pull an eyebrow up as far as it would go and put on an extra smug grin.

“Yes, I'm the _best_ artificer on the continent but forgot to consider something as _basic_ as _rust_ when I made my own enchanted _armor_.”

“What are you doing with your face and can you not?”

Her expression went back to normal.

“I'm practicing my sarcasm! Did you get it?”

“Pure subtlety,” Catra replied, the blankest stare on her face.

“Thanks!”

That actually did almost make her crack a smile. But then:

“So why are you scared of water?”

“I'm not-”

She hissed and jerked away when Entrapta's hair spritzed a little water at her with such pizzazz that it toppled her out of the saddle and landed her flat on her face, one foot still tangled in her stirrup.

Melog stopped dragging her along so he could bend his head around and neigh to match Entrapta's laughter.

“Fine. We'll cross here,” Catra grumbled into the grass. “Assholes.”

Emily took on some of what Darla was carrying as she led her through the water, both so it wouldn't get wet and to help the donkey balance her weight on the slippery riverbed gravel. Meanwhile Catra stayed on top of Melog with her knees pulled to her face while Entrapta led him. Her hair was just long enough that it could walk her above the water surface as long as she kept her legs folded. It was a slow process, though of course nothing compared to the hours and hours the planned route would have taken them, which only darkened the bruise on Catra's ego.

They were just about halfway through, Emily already waiting on the other side with Darla, when an arrow whizzed past well above Catra's head, followed by a distant “dammit, Kyle!”

Catra turned back to see the bounty hunters burst out of the undergrowth, all three mounted and ready for a rematch.

“They're better than I thought,” she growled. Not their marksmanship clearly, but their tracking skills.

Fortunately, now that Kyle had once again messed up their chance to take her out while she was immobile and unaware – although he kept firing as they approached, his aim certainly not aided by the gallop – they would be forced to follow them into the river. On the other hand, they seemed to be much less concerned with the safety of their horses and urged them on mercilessly even as they waded into the water.

Entrapta and her were at this point in only knee deep, so she took the chance and hoped Melog's instincts and those fancy new irons would keep them safe.

“Get on, quick!” she yelled and slapped another arrow out of the air with her sword.

After only a second of hesitation, Entrapta flung herself into the saddle in front of her and Catra heeled her steed's sides.

Through the water splashing up around them, she managed to signal to Emily, who already had her sword drawn, to follow her lead and run. The armor got the message and mounted the poor, already overburdened donkey, who made her discontent known loudly but trotted away as fast as she could anyway. She would have found the image of the huge armor's legs nearly dragging on the ground as she rode a mount barely fit for a child very funny, if she hadn't been busy praying Melog didn't slip on some algae and threw them into the river to drown.

They made it across and Melog went off like a lightning bolt as soon as he touched solid ground. Of course the mercenaries' horses, though nowhere near as majestic or powerful, followed suit. They assumed a V-formation, with Kyle behind their quarry while Lonnie and Rogelio meant to flank them on both sides.

Catra went to reach for the throwing knives that lined the inside of her cloak but found herself literally tied up by Entrapta's hair as she had reflexively sought to hold on to anything she could the moment she was back on a horse moving at frightening speeds.

“Entrapta,” she grumbled as she fought against the mass of pink around her.

“Sorry,” she breathed, trying to keep herself together and released Catra's arms, wrapping around her torso instead and keeping her hands clenched around the front of the saddle.

Catra nudged Melog left to avoid another incoming arrow and decided Kyle had to go first. He might have been an awful shot but even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. The problem was that if she turned either way to get a good shot, she would inevitably clash with one of the other two. Unless...

She pressed the reins into Entrapta's hands.

“Time for your first riding lesson.”

Entrapta made a panicked noise, but Catra had already twisted around and lined up her aim. However, her first knife missed the mark as her temporary driver must have accidentally tugged on the reins and Melog obediently drifted right.

“Hold him steady!”

“How?!”

She lined up her next shot and while doing so squeezed Entrapta's shoulder with her free hand, both to steady herself and as silent encouragement.

“Don't pull on anything.”

The second knife was much closer and Kyle visibly dodged even though it probably still wouldn't have hit him. But the third one would have. She was lining up her fourth when the Dragonborn roared to their right. In her periphery, she saw him closing the distance, his claymore replaced by a lance, raised to strike.

“Uh, Catra...”

“Hold on... just one second...”

Entrapta fought every instinct not to yank Melog left as the terrifying man came closer and closer, fury in his eyes.

Catra waited until the bounce of their gallop reached a high point and gave her arm a split second of stillness. The blade left her fingers, spun through the air in a perfect curve and with the added velocity of the chase lodged itself deep in the shoulder of Kyle's horse. It shrieked in pain, skidded and rose to its haunches, throwing off its rider, who hit the ground with a thud that thoroughly knocked the air out of his lungs and kept rolling over himself until finally the momentum wore out.

“Now!” Catra yelled and Entrapta pulled hard left.

Rogelio roared again and kicked his horse to go even faster.

Out of the two remaining bounty hunters, Lonnie, with her lighter armor and lack of a helmet was easily the better target for her knives. As soon as she was in range, Catra launched a volley, which had the desired effect of keeping her at a distance but did nothing about the reptile's mad dash. And then Catra ran out of knives to throw.

“Well, shit.”

As soon as the hail of blades stopped, Lonnie closed in on them, whipping out her trusty flail. Catra couldn't take them both on at once, or, well, maybe she could, but it definitely wasn't the preferred strategy and outrunning them was increasingly not an option as Melog was already starting to foam from the exertion of carrying two people at top speed.

They were only barely still out of Rogelio's lance's reach and one well-placed thrust from that thing would be more than enough to bring down Melog and them along with him, as they had all just witnessed. Frantically trying to think of a plan, Catra's eyes fell on the tool belt perpetually around Entrapta's hips and a pretty hefty looking hammer. She pulled it out and flung it at Rogelio with all her might. To her surprise it found its mark perfectly, hitting his helmet with a ring, like a bell struck. The bounty hunter slumped forward unconscious and although he didn't fall off his horse, it didn't know what to do without direction and gradually slowed down.

“Aww, that was my third favorite hammer,” Entrapta whined.

“It died doing what it loved.”

They weren't given time to relax, as Lonnie had used the opportunity to close the gap completely. The thick spikes on the flail's head whistled through the air only missing them because Catra pulled them both out of the way in the nick of time. She wanted to draw her left sword in the same motion, but got caught in that goddamn hair everywhere again and then the follow-up was already approaching, straight towards her face. She dove but before Lonnie could give her a very painful haircut, Entrapta's hand shot out and managed to grab a hold of the chain. Fully ignoring the spikes everywhere she found purchase against the head and pulled.

Lonnie was so surprised by this absurd maneuver that she didn't let go in time and had her arm stretched across the gap between their horses. Catra finally managed to get her sword free and although the angle didn't allow for much power behind the attack, her enchanted blade successfully cleaved through the bounty hunter's pauldron and into the shoulder underneath. Lonnie screamed and threw herself away from them. However, she was clearly intent on finishing this job once and for all, drew her own short sword and approached once more.

“This is really shoddy workmanship. I mean, what even is this alloy, sediment with a trace of ore?” Entrapta was turning the flail's head around in her hand, oblivious nutter that she was.

Catra parried Lonnie's first blow.

“Don't appraise it!” Another parry. “Hit something with it!”

Entrapta swung the mace, which Lonnie blocked easily enough, but she must have overestimated her already weakened arm as the momentum carried her blade further than intended, leaving her wide open for Catra to go for her torso. Falchions not being particularly strong stabbing weapons, so she only managed a relatively shallow thrust between the ribs, probably not enough to pierce any vital organs but certainly enough to cripple her. Lonnie's free hand flew to press on the wound, blood spluttering out between her fingers as she only just managed to glance what Catra had intended to be the final blow off of her hand guard.

The cursed rogue wasn't going to go through this whole circus a third time but her next swing missed entirely as Entrapta was steering Melog right, away from her almost beaten opponent, who naturally took the chance to retreat.

“What are you doing?!” She barked.

Entrapta didn't respond but kept putting distance between them.

_Naive weakling._

Catra growled and moved to retake the reins only to be held off by two thick coils of hair.

“We need to finish this. They'll keep chasing us otherwise.”

“Can't we lose them in the forest like we planned?”

“She's their leader. If I end her now, we won't have to.”

Entrapta hesitated, so Catra used the circumstance of their seating arrangement to mutter into her ear with as much warmth as she managed to fake:

“I know it's not pretty but you have to be brave right now.”

No response.

“Please, I just want to keep you safe, like I promised I would.”

She felt Entrapta shift around, uncertain, and twisted one hand so she could run her fingertips through her hair.

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me.”

Entrapta shrank together further but her hair slowly loosened its grip and allowed Catra to slow down and turn Melog around but she never got the chance to finish her gruesome work.

Rogelio, with a sizable dent in his helmet and a brutal headache but otherwise recovered, had caught up to them. Not giving them an opportunity to brace themselves, he charged, spear poised to run through anything and everything it encountered.

Melog, absolute champion that he was despite his exhaustion, successfully sidestepped Rogelio but he had anticipated that and at the last second swung his weapon behind his back and thrust it sideways, fully aware that his own momentum would rip it out of his hand and accepting that this would take away his biggest advantage in this fight, range, in favor of an almost guaranteed hit.

Thanks to her cat-like reflexes, the rogue was able to use her sword to redirect the attack downwards but it came in too fast to miss completely. The sharp point embedded itself deep in Entrapta's thigh and she cried out before doubling over with the white hot pain that surged from her leg through her entire body.

Catra saw red then and in a moment of complete madness, brought Melog just close enough to her enemy that she could leap out of the saddle and tackle him as though he wasn't at least twice her size. Sword entirely forgotten, her claws burst through her gloves and went straight for his most obvious weak spot: The neck. Her legs were wrapped around his barrel-sized torso, so her left hand was free to tear off his helmet while her right lanced into the first patch of scales she saw and dragged as hard as she could, drawing four vicious grooves from his larynx all the way to his cheekbone. If he hadn't had those tough scales in the first place, he wouldn't have survived, but in the rush of pain and fury he was strong enough to rip her off of himself and fling her away like a rag doll.

She would have surely cracked her skull against the rocks she was hurling towards, hadn't Emily finally also caught up to the battle and jumped off of Darla to catch and brace her impact with her own hollow body.

Rogelio must have had some sense left in him because he realized he wasn't going to win a fight against the knight, still fresh and unharmed, a barrier of pure steel and magic protecting the cat as she coughed the air back into her lungs, otherwise also still in fighting shape. Or it could have been that act of heroism itself that reminded him that he had two partners battered and bruised in need of his care, but either way he pulled his horse around and retreated, wordless and stoic.

Catra got back on her feet with a groan and, still a little disoriented from her five seconds of flight, gave Emily's breastplate a friendly knock.

“Thanks, chrome dome.”

A whimper firmly pulled her back to reality.

Entrapta was still in the saddle as Melog made small whinnies of concern, clutching her leg with both hands, as blood bubbled forth freely, tears streaming down her face. Both her companions jogged over, Emily lifted her off of the horse, placed her flat on the ground and lifted her leg at Catra's instructions in order to slow down the blood loss.

Catra gave her patient quick reassurance.

“Just breathe. Slowly.”

The artificer sobbed but nodded and tried to focus on her breathing.

She ripped the hole Entrapta's trousers further open, clearly they were not as impenetrable as her gloves apparently were, she thought in a flash of misplaced curiosity, and inspected the injury. Because of how she had knocked it downward, the lance had torn a short gash and at its deepest point pierced almost all the way through Entrapta's leg roughly a hand width above the knee. Luckily it hadn't hit any major arteries though, judging by the fact that simply elevating it had already slowed the bleed significantly. Still, she used the first piece of fabric she got a hold of as a tourniquet and fished out rags, bandages and a bottle of cheap but strong barley liquor.

While Emily kept a folded rag firmly pressed against the injury, Catra lifted Entrapta's head onto her

knees, uncorked the bottle with her teeth and held it to her patient's lips.

“Drink this. It'll help.”

Entrapta's already twisted up face curdled even further at the sharp taste.

“That's disgusting,” she coughed.

“Medicine always is. Didn't your you learn that in surgery school?” She attempted a smile, even as she channeled more of the stuff into Entrapta's reluctant mouth.

She made her drink enough that, given her nonexistent tolerance, she would be numb in a few short minutes, though unfortunately not fast enough to spare her the searing bite of alcohol on an open wound. A bandage was applied and then, disregarding Emily's silent protest, Catra ordered her to carry Entrapta – bridal style rather than the usual piggyback in order to maintain elevation.

They couldn't stay here, regardless of the fact that the bounty hunters were, on aggregate, much more beat up than them because Catra was going to make sure they were rid of them for good. And if that meant riding through the night and the next day so they could make it to the Whispering Woods with no delay, then so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tabaxi are a race of cat-people from the d&d universe. They look much more cat-like than Catra though, hence why she probably couldn't pass as one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the super pal trio chapter.

“Is it me or did your hair use to be more... purple?” Catra asked, observing the pink twin tails in front of her as they swayed with Emily's steps.

“Yeah, it does that sometimes,” Entrapta smiled without looking up from her log. They had been traveling through the Whispering Woods for almost two weeks now and were about two thirds of the way through. Entrapta's leg was healing nicely and, in an impressive display of resilience, she had regained her good spirits pretty quickly once the pain became manageable, especially since she was in the fortunate position that she could move around freely even without the use of her legs.

“What, just for funsies?”

“I'm not sure what triggers it, it's not something I control. Just like how it sometimes moves around on its own.”

That it did. More than once when Catra had sung her to sleep because her leg was acting up, Entrapta's hair would seek out her arm to hold on to long after the rest of her was gone. It also occasionally mimed what she was dreaming, which could be pretty entertaining to watch.

“I do have several hypotheses though! Wanna hear?” She tilted her head backwards so she was grinning at Catra upside down.

“Do I have a choice in the matter?”

Entrapta's grin widened.

“To put it really, really, really, almost insultingly simply, my best theory at the moment is that because my magic works through my hands,” she made grabby motions, “it sort of rubs off on things I handle a lot even without me meaning to.”

An epiphany struck Catra.

“Your gloves. That's how you could grab that mace without hurting yourself.”

“That was a very spur of the moment thing and I actually wasn't at all confident it was going to work but yes! Everything around me ends up accidentally enchanted; my clothes, my hair, my tools,” she pointed at Catra and by extension her ears, which she had insistently tended to every day until the sores had healed, “even you're probably a little bit enchanted at this point,” she giggled.

“Maybe I am,” Catra mumbled, mostly to herself. And again that gross squishy feeling in her chest. It had started showing up with alarming regularity, especially since that last confrontation with the bounty hunters. She had an inkling what it was of course and she didn't like the bitter taste that always accompanied it.

Entrapta's head snapped back upright and she stiffened as the blood flowed back out of her head.

“Can we stop for a minute?” She asked, suddenly serious.

“What's wrong?”

“I just need a little break.”

Catra was already pulling Melog to a halt, nodded and watched Entrapta climb off of Emily. Now that they were in the relative safety of the woods she not only forewent her cloak and mask (though she kept the turban on during the day) but she also didn't mind taking it a little slower and frankly, though she was still struggling to admit it to herself, her concern for her companion's well-being was starting to outweigh her need to hurry up and get this whole thing over with.

While the artificer stretched her six limbs, Catra used the opportunity to disappear into the undergrowth and relieve herself. She was buttoning her pants back up when she heard the distinct sound of hooves rapidly accelerating and returned just in time to see Melog disappear between the trees, carrying a blur of pink.

“What the hell!?” She turned to Emily who was gormlessly staring into space. “Where's she going?! Why didn't you stop her, you useless tin can?!”

Emily pointed at the ground where she was standing and shrugged.

Catra groaned and ordered her to do the exact same thing Entrapta had, namely to stay there and watch Darla, while she dashed off to chase that lying little gremlin down.

Even on all fours she was at a disadvantage compared to Melog, given that she was a predator, a born sprinter, not an endurance runner. On top of that the Whispering Woods had a tendency to... warp in bizarre ways. That was why they were so feared by most travelers, no landmark would reliably stay in the same place, compasses pointed the wrong way and even the stars seemed to rearrange themselves to confuse anyone trying to navigate by them. Catra got around this by following scent patterns rather than visual clues, which didn't shift nearly as much; different animals marking their territories, certain trees and flowers aggregating in different areas, even the various bodies of water that fed this giant ecosystem and all smelled of whatever type of rock or soil they flowed through. It wasn't an exact science by any stretch but combined with her tracking skills it worked well enough.

She stopped to sniff the air and try and pick up on Entrapta's scent – unobtrusively sweet but braced with a certain zest and a hint of what she could only describe as lightly burnt toast – when she noticed movement in her periphery. A red, long, pointy thing was bobbing about above a dense salmonberry bush. It had to be a creature of some kind, of which there were a great many in these woods, but Catra couldn't make heads or tails of it and decided it would be best to just leave it alone. But then, mid-step, she heard more rustling that indicated something quite large was moving behind those bushes and froze.

Way too suddenly, a face popped out of the greenery and Catra nearly leapt out of her skin.

“Oh hey there!” it said with a cheerful voice.

A human figure at least as tall as Emily and easily muscular enough to carry her along with probably their entire party stepped into view; a woman with snow-white hair cropped short and friendly dark eyes that contrasted horribly with the massive red claws that adorned her arms in place of forearms, the thick plates of natural armor that covered much of the rest of her and the pointy thing that was in fact her tail.

Catra could only stare open-mouthed and drink in the... thing in front of her.

The woman seemed to be used to this sort of reaction as she lifted her claws in what was supposed to be an amiable gesture but actually came across as quite threatening.

“My name's Scorpia,” her voice and face radiated honesty and kindness, “I know, I look kinda scary, but don't worry I'm super duper nice and give great hugs! Want one?” She opened her arms wide.

“Noo,” Catra squeaked and took another step back.

“That's ok, but let me know if you change your mind because it has been a _while_ since I've gotten to know anyone who isn't a squirrel and they do not like to cuddle, let me tell you...” she paused for Catra to fill in her name.

“Cat-” her voice stumbled and didn't get back up.

“Kat? Is that short for Katherine or...?”

“It's short for WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

“You know, funny story actually, I accidentally broke into a witch's lair and she put a curse on me. You know, take away my thieving hands, poetic justice and all that,” she pinched at the air a couple of times, “and when I tried to explain to her that I wasn't trying to steal from her and that the window just sort of popped out of its frame, I swear, she made it so I can only break the curse by not speaking for a year and a day, which, I'm gonna be honest, is a tallish order for me, I don't know if you can tell. So I've basically accepted that this is my life now. It's actually not that bad once you get used to it. I mean there are some things, like going to the bathroom was a real adventure at first but once I figured out-”

“Stop!”

Scorpia chuckled awkwardly and fell silent.

Catra took a moment to gather her thoughts and composure.

“You got cursed and you're just... ok with that?” She finally asked, thoroughly incredulous.

“I like to look at the positive side. For example, it makes a great ice breaker with new friends,” she winked.

“Yeah, works like a charm,” Catra replied dryly. She clapped her hands together and inhaled sharply. “Unfortunately I don't really have time for... this. You don't happen to have come across a nerd who walks on her pigtails and cackles a lot, probably rambling about math or some shit?”

“You know, I can't say that I have but if I do, you'll be the first to know. But while we're on the subject, have you seen a beautiful woman with pink blossoms in her hair, who plays the harp and sings like an angel in a way that makes fairies appear and flowers bloom and all the birds join in with her?” Scorpia was looking into the middle distance with a dreamy look on her face that was maybe two descriptors away from turning into actual heart eyes.

“Nope.”

Scorpia's face fell back to its base level chipperness.

“Alternatively, do you possibly know a way out of here? I followed her without really thinking where I was going and got a little turned around. And I am kind of starting to miss people and eating things other than berries.” As if on queue her stomach grumbled loudly. “I could help you look for your friend in return,” she offered.

Already knowing her answer, Catra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, mumbling under her breath:

“What have I done to deserve another one of these?”

She reached into her pack and produced a few strips of jerky.

“Thank you so much!” Scorpia took the gift and threatened her with another hug.

“Personal space!” she yelped, ducking out of her grasp at the last second.

If Entrapta was talkative, then Scorpia was a verbal waterfall to the point that Catra started to reconsider if Entrapta really even did talk that much, all things considered. She at least managed to stay quiet for more than thirty seconds at a time, in fact they had spent whole days riding along in comfortable silence. Silence which she missed dearly as Scorpia talked and talked, apparently never running out of things to say. Or maybe she was just repeating herself, Catra's ears had tuned her out in an act of sheer self-preservation. If nothing else it made the weird stipulation of her curse make sense, pigs would learn to fly before this woman learned to put a goddamn sock in it.

Still, she couldn't deny her curiosity about her. Someone who was caught in the exact same situation as her, a kindred spirit, diametrically opposed personalities notwithstanding. That was most of the reason she had agreed to let her tag along in the first place, there had to be something useful she could glean from her and if not, then Entrapta might, which was why her first priority had to be to get her back. And also because Entrapta was an agent of chaos who attracted trouble like honey attracts bears.

She was torn out of her musings by a sudden tear in Scorpia's unending stream of words.

“Look, a horse.”

Catra followed her gaze and saw Melog scraping at the dirt a little helplessly. She whistled and he came running with an excited whinny.

“I'm very angry with you, boy,” he huffed in response “don't give me attitude now. Running off like that... You better know where she is.”

She took the reins and right away he started tugging at them in the direction he had come from.

“Hi, horsie!” Scorpia greeted and was promptly ignored.

“His name's Melog.”

“Meeloog. That's an unusual name.”

“Says the person named 'Scorpia'.”

“Funny you should bring that up, it's actually-”

“Let me guess, it's a nickname someone spectacularly uncreative gave you because the curse took your name along with everything else.”

“Uh, yes, how did you know?”

“Just a hunch.”

They followed Melog back to the spot they had first seen him at and he started kicking dirt again. More precisely, he was kicking at a square slab of stone covered in unreadable markings, obviously not of natural origins. She could tell something had recently disturbed the soil around its edges but not how, as the slab itself seemed perfectly solid.

Her eyes darted around looking for clues and found Entrapta's ink stick and right next to it her magic paper, except it had landed in a puddle left by the recent rain, which had not only washed all the ink out of it but dissolved the paper itself into little more than sludge.

“What's that?” Scorpia asked.

“Entrapta's. She would never leave these behind.”

Maybe she had been taking notes that could help track her down. She had watched Entrapta write her log often enough to know at least the basics of how it worked and as she was trying and failing to rescue at least a scrap of the paper, it hit her like an avalanche all at once:

_Something happened to Entrapta. Again._

She knew it wasn't her fault this time but it couldn't be a coincidence that Entrapta had run off now of all times. She couldn't blame her either, it was after all her who had put her belligerent nature above her companion's safety even as she was claiming the opposite and made them turn around to finish off Lonnie. They could have gotten away but she decided to take them back into danger. Hell, she had even redirected Rogelio's strike so it hit her at all. She was lucky Entrapta tolerated her presence at all anymore and yet she didn't even seem to be angry, despite the fact Catra hadn't even had the guts to step up and apologize, all of which only made the guilt worse.

She abandoned the destroyed paper with a frustrated growl.

_You'd think someone that clever would remember to make their magic paper waterproof._

Then again, this was the same person who regularly forgot to sleep and eat when she was too busy inventing-

She glanced at the ink stick and facepalmed.

“I'm such a fucking dumbass.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” Scorpia promptly countered, “why?”

“The paper isn't magic, the stick is!”

Scorpia nodded thoughtfully, pretending to understand what she was talking about.

Catra looked around for a smooth surface to write on.

“You, come down here,” she gestured for Scorpia to get down on one knee, which she did without question, and stood behind her.

“Oh, you want a piggyback ride? Sure, hop on!” She craned her head back to see Catra instead writing onto the leather vest that stretched over her broad back, which provided easily the most suitable space in the vicinity.

_Travel Log: Day 27_

_3\. hour: Still barely able to keep up with cataloging all the fascinating species in this forest. The biodiversity here is truly remarkable._

That morning she had found an apparently rare caterpillar on a tree, which Catra had to physically drag her away from, lest she spend hours observing its feeding behavior. Again. This was pretty par for the course for them and while annoying on a practical level, it was also quite... refreshing to be around someone so enthusiastically curious about the world, with no prejudices to speak of.

She skimmed over the detailed description of said caterpillar that followed, a tangent about moss, a note to look up the pitch range of the white-tailed ant thrush, bla bla bla...

_6\. hour: Detected a source of magic nearby. Will investigate. Initial assessment: Biological. >1000 years old. Neutral._

_Correction: >3000 years old. Mineral. Very exciting, could be a hitherto unknown material. If usable I might make something for Catra out of it. (Note: Ascertain reason for urge to make things for Catra.) (Note: Apologize to Catra.)_

_Discovered an entrance, writing possibly of First Ones origin. (Note: Research into First Ones language.) Will attempt activ_

Three guesses what happened there. Conveniently pushing aside that comment about her and the at this point wholly expected squishy feeling, Catra wiped Scorpia's back clean.

“She's definitely in there.” She redoubled her efforts to find a way to open the stone hatch but if it was magic-based there wasn't a whole lot she could do. “You don't happen to know how to open magic doors, do you?”

Scorpia shook her head.

“We'll have to find another way in.”

“I mean, uh, it's probably a stupid idea – I'm not that clever with stuff like this ahaha – but I could try and punch through it?” She made a face like she was ready to be berated for what an idiot she was but instead Catra's face broke into a toothy grin.

“I like the way you think.”

Scorpia gifted her with the most elated smile a human face could produce and rolled her shoulders.

“Step back, this will get _rocky,_ ” She winked.

Catra rolled her eyes but saved the comment.

Scorpia arched her back as far as it would go and slammed her mighty pincers onto the slab with all her strength. A small crack split open. She repeated the motion and the crack spread further, again and it branched into many smaller cracks.

“Just a couple more times,” Catra urged.

“I got this.”

This time she took a run-up, launched herself into the air and full on body-checked the hatch. It crumbled to bits and dropped Scorpia down the staircase underneath. She got up quickly, covered in debris but unharmed.

“You ok?” Catra asked as she followed her down the stairs.

“Yep, A-okay!”

“That was... impressive.”

“Oh it was nothing, barely even felt i-” she tried to smooth out her hair suavely but ended up raining dust into her mouth that sent her into a coughing fit.

“Come on, let's go,” Catra lit the nearest torch a beckoned her to follow.

“With you in a sec,” Scorpia wheezed.

The tunnel comfortably fit three people walking side by side and was clad in richly decorated stone on all sides. Whatever civilization had built it had obviously been an affluent one and this place must have been of great significance to them.

It turned out not to be a very long corridor. In fact, if physical distance had meant anything in these woods, they should have been able to see the huge chamber it eventually led into from where they had started. It was shaped like a bowl, at least a hundred strides across and at the very center the ceiling was a golden dome, whose windows strategically aimed the sunlight to highlight the installation underneath. There, suspended from eight thick metal cables attached to pillars big enough to fit a horse, hung a rock, maybe five strides in diameter. There was nothing obviously special about it other than that it was apparently an object of worship for the builders of this magnificent hall, as well as one tiny artificer, who was currently inching her way towards it along one of the cables.

“Entrapta!” Catra's voice and hurried steps echoed several times in the empty cathedral.

“Hey, Catra! Look what I found!” She pointed at the boulder like it was a interestingly shaped pebble she had picked up from the side of the road.

“Get down from there!”

“In a minute. I'm just getting a sample.”

“You're gonna hurt yourself, you fucking imbecile!”

“Nah,” Entrapta waved her off and Catra threw her arms up in helpless indignation.

She turned to Scorpia, who had just caught up to her.

“Can you believe the shit I have to deal with?!”

“I don't know, she looks like she's doing alright to me.”

“She's dangling two stories in the air! By her HAIR!”

Scorpia nodded in agreement.

“It's very impressive. I need to get her hair care routine.”

She was pretty sure she was going to die. Her blood pressure couldn't handle this much crazy and her heart would just straight up explode. Thus she stood there, impotently clenching and unclenching her fists as she watched Entrapta slowly advance along the cable. The twitch in her eye only got worse when the artificer reached her goal and started to climb the uneven surface of the rock. At the top she flopped herself down on her belly and stopped moving.

“Hurry up and get your damn sample already!”

“I think I understand what you feel like when you curl up in a sun ray.”

“What?” She glanced at Scorpia, “I don't do that.” She did. Every chance she got.

“This meteor is like a big ball of magic energy,” Entrapta went on, “it's so nice and... tingly,” she sighed and closed her eyes, basking in the cosmic glow emitted by this visitor from outer space.

“I'm not gonna stand here and watch you cuddle a rock.”

“Then sit down.”

“That's it. I'm coming up there.”

She pulled off her gloves and boots and made for the nearest pillar. Even with her claws out it was quite a climb but she moved with purpose. The cable was an easier, if slower process and once there, she turned over Entrapta, who grumbled in protest.

“Get up,” she ordered.

Entrapta reluctantly opened her eyes. Her irises were glowing like little red lanterns in the semi-dark. It made her look almost ethereal in a way that reminded her uncomfortably of Adora in her magic form.

“Your eyes...”

“What about them?” Entrapta felt around her closed eyelids as if to make sure they were still there and the spell was broken.

Catra gave a chuckle despite herself.

“Never mind. Come on now.”

“Sorry I borrowed Melog without asking.”

“It's alright. Just don't run off again.”

“I had to or you would have stopped me.”

“Only because...” she trailed off, unable to justify the rest of that sentence to herself.

_I'm supposed to protect you._

She wanted to reach out, to look into her eyes as she said her next words but couldn't, for so many reasons.

“I'm sorry. Please give me another chance.”

It felt like Entrapta's magical gaze was burning through her as she regarded her for a long moment.

“Does that mean there _will_ be another time? Because I don't think I'll find my way back here alone,” she smiled sheepishly.

Catra wanted to refuse but couldn't find it in her anymore and relented with a chuff.

“We'll bring a rope.”

Entrapta beamed and nodded, an effect only enhanced by the glow of her eyes. Without another word, she pulled a hammer and a chisel out of her tool belt and set them against what she deemed a good spot to break off a chunk of the space rock.

The hammer fell and a flash of light, followed by a shock wave hit both of them. Entrapta flew off the rock with absolutely no chance to hold on to something, while Catra managed to at least slow herself against the side of the meteor with her claws before she too lost her grip and plummeted.

“I got you! I got you!” Scorpia repeated as she sprinted to catch them. She did, but Entrapta threw her off balance and Catra toppled her completely. They ended up in a groaning pile on the floor.

Entrapta shot up, scientific fervor in her eyes.

“Amazing! A mineral with a built in defense system, I need to get a better reading on that!” She threw Catra off of herself and tried to get up, only to be yanked back down by her hair.

“Like hell you do,” Catra grumbled.

“Wood oo mond toking or foot off mo foce?”

Entrapta lifted her foot and for the first time became aware of Scorpia's existence. She oohed when she noticed her chitin armor and poked at one of the spikes that adorned it. She planted her hands on both sides of her face and gazed into her surprised eyes, the same way she had done when she had first met Catra.

“You found another one!”

“Hi, I'm Scorpia. Another one of what?”

“You're cursed too, didn't you notice? Tell me everything!”

“Don't encourage her,” Catra cut in.

Scorpia lifted Entrapta with the ease of someone picking up a piece of paper so she could get back on her feet and then set her down again.

“I'm a little confused here,” she admitted, scratching the back of her head.

Catra grumbled and revealed her ears.

“Kitty!”

“Personal space! Personal spaaaaahungh,” there was no escape. Already her feet had left the ground and she was being crushed against a soft chest.

“Me too!” Entrapta launched herself into Scorpia's open arms, mostly so she could get another look at that armor, but the hug was nice also.

“Ohhh, I get it,” Scorpia whispered loudly, “it's Cat with a C, not a K.”


End file.
